Is there anything, any statistic, any event that could conceivably change the stance of a gun advocate (nut) on the issue of gun control? Sandy Hook didn’t do it, nor did Columbine, the Aurora theater shootings, or any of the other mass shootings. (These guys were insane; no gun laws could have stopped them; they could have been stopped had the victims been armed, etc., etc.) Statistics showing the correlation between gun ownership and firearm death rates in developed nations don’t move the needle. (Other developed nations don’t have the same big, barely civilized violent underclass that the USA has.) Appeals to the words of Second Amendment (what well-regulated militia do you belong to?) have no effect.

Because the “Freedom to Bear Arms” is a near-religious belief based on nothing more than gut feel (how can you argue against what you feel in your gut?), I doubt that I’ll ever change any minds. But I did recently find some interesting statistics about gun control and firearm death rates in those famous laboratories of democracy, the States of the United States.

So here I go again:

According to the Kaiser Institute, the USA firearm death rate is 10.4/100,000. That same website shows the firearm death rates in each of the States.